Having visible tattoos can increase a person’s chances of getting hired for jobs such as bartending, according to a new study. Some managers think tattoos on staff can “positively convey an organisation’s image,” suggests the study. Andrew Timming, from the University of St Andrews in the UK, said his research showed managers believed having workers such as bartenders with tattoos would attract younger customers who find body art fashionable. “Visibly tattooed job applicants can present as attractive candidates in the labour market because they can help to positively convey an organisation’s image or brand, particularly in firms that seek to target a younger, edgier demographic of customers,” says Timming. “Tattoos, especially in pop culture industries such as fashion retail, are an effective marketing and branding tool. “Body art can be seen as an asset in the labour market, as long as an applicant’s tattoos are compatible with the organisation’s wider brand personality,” he said. “This argument is compatible with anecdotal evidence that there has been, in recent decades, what might be called a ‘tattoo renaissance’ in which body art has figured more positively in mainstream society and popular culture. “Previous research has focused on the negative effects of tattoos on one’s employment chances, but the idea that body art can improve job prospects has, until now, been largely neglected,” Timming said. Two versions of people’s faces, one with a tattoo added to the neck using image software, one without it were showed to 192 people with managerial experience by the scientists. On a scale of one to seven, the managers were asked to imagine they were employing a bartender and to rate the faces. They gave the same face a score of 4.38 when it was not tattooed, while a higher score of 5.07 on averages when it was tattooed. In the case of women, the rating was higher: 5.14 for tattooed women, compared to 4.51 for women without a tattoo. Further, managers rated the tattooed version of the face lower: 3.38 on average, compared with 4.67 without a tattoo when considering the person for a hypothetical role as a waiter in a high-class restaurant, where the customers would be older. Two managers of a skateboard firm and a chain of fashionable pubs who were interviewed by Timming said tattooed staff would be seen positively by their younger customers. One manager at the pub chain said that the company paid for some staff to have tattoos as a performance-related incentive. However, certain kinds of tattoos are unacceptable, such as sexual images, misogynistic or related to drink or drugs, those supporting fascism or Satanism, Timming noted.
